A literary history of Persia

THE ISMA'fLl DOCTRINE 407to restore to Persia the dominant position which she hadpreviously held, and to which, in his 1opinion, she was entitled. I myself am inclined to think that, to judge by the Persiancharacter, in which the sentiment of what we understand bypatriotism is not a conspicuous feature, and by what I havemyself observed in the analogous case of the Babi's, this quasipoliticalmotive has been unduly exaggerated ;and that'Abdu'lldh b.Maymiin and his ally, the wealthy astrologerDandan2 (or Zaydan) exerted themselves as they did topropagate the system of doctrine about to be described notbecause it was Persian, but because, being Persian, it stronglyappealed to their Persian minds. 3The doctrine which we are about to describe is,it must berepeated, the doctrine evolved by 'Abdu'lldh b. Maymiinal-Qaddah." The sect of the Isma'ilis," says Guyardin hisFragments relatifi a la Doctrine des Ismallis (Paris, 1874, p. 8)," was primarilya mere subdivision of the Shi'ites, or partisansof 'AH ; but, from the time of *Abdu'llah, surnamed Qaddah,towards thethe son of Maymiin Qaddah, and chief of the sect,year A.H. 250 (A.D. 864), it so greatly diverged from its pointof departure that it met with the reprehension of the Shf'itesthemselves, who denounced as impioussuch as would embraceit." The chief thing which it derived from Isma'il theseventh Imam was its name hmd i lll ; but it bore several othernames, such as Sab li (" the Sect of the Seven ") ; Batinl ("theEsoteric Sect ") ;Ta'limi (" doctrinaire "), because, accordingto its tenets, the true " teaching " or " doctrine " (ta^llni)could only be obtained from the Imdm of the time ;Fdtimi1See, for instance, the Fihrist, p. 188, where the same design is ascribedto Abu Muslim ; Guyard, Un Grand Maitre dcs Assassins, pp. 4-5 and10-13 ; de Goeje's Carmatlies, pp. 1-2 ;von Hammer's Histoire de I'Ordredes Assassins (Paris, 1833), p. 44, &c.*See de Goeje, op. cit., p. 15 and note 2 ad cole.3 No doubt Persian national feeling was appealed to, when it couldserve the purpose of the dd'i, but he was just as ready to appeal to similarsentiments in the Arabs and other peoples. See de Sacy's Expose, p. cxii,